N.J. attorney raffles off classic T-Bird to raise funds for nonprofit law center

ED MURRAY/THE STAR-LEDGER Richard Pompelio with his 1956 Ford Thunderbird in Sparta on Tuesday August 31, 2010. Pompelio bought the car and was looking forward to his son driving it to the prom but his son Tony was murdered. He is raffling off the car to raise money for the New Jersey Crime VIctims Law Center.

Richard Pompelio has owned a 1956 Ford Thunderbird since 1988.

For all but the first of the past 22 years, the attorney and director of the New Jersey Crime Victims’ Law Center, has scarcely driven the vintage vehicle because it evokes such painful memories.

Memories of how he had been looking forward to seeing his eldest child, Anthony, drive the car to his senior prom at the end of the 1988-89 school year.

Memories of how his son never got that chance, because he was stabbed to death at age 17 in February 1989, while coming to the aid of a girl who was being accosted at a party.

“We used to joke about the car. I used to say, ‘You know what, Tony? You’re going to take this car to the prom,’” recalled Pompelio. “He’d say, ‘You sure, Dad? Take the T-Bird to the prom?’ I said, ‘Your date will love it.’ I always figured the time would come and he would take it. That’s what I thought.”

The car mostly has sat idle over the years in the attached garage of Pompelio’s home, but it may soon be on the road again because Pompelio is raffling it off Dec. 3 in a fundraiser for the nonprofit law center.

Pompelio, 63, channeled his grief into crime-victim advocacy. Eighteen years ago he founded the law center, the first pro-bono law center of its kind in the nation. It has represented 10,000 victims — all free of charge — and has been a model for 11 similar operations elsewhere in the nation.

The nonprofit NJCVLC has sustained itself over the years with assistance from pro-bono attorneys and funding from the nonprofit organization National Crime Victims’ Law Institute of Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore. The institute has provided $250,000 each year from federal funding to help cover the center’s costs.

Ed Murray/The Star-LedgerTony Pompelio, son of Richard Pompelio who was murdered.

This year, however, federal funding for the umbrella national institute and its 12 clinics was slashed in half, to $800,000, said Meg Garvin, executive director of the national institute.

The clinics are scrambling to fill their budget gaps or face possible closures, Garvin said.

Pompelio estimates his center may receive $150,000 from the national institute, leaving a $100,000 gap for his center to fill. Most of the clinics are undertaking fundraisers such as golf outings, but Pompelio’s raffle is a bit more unconventional, she said.

“Rich selling his own car is the most unusual fundraiser I’ve heard of,” Garvin said.

“Nothing surprises me with Rich. He is the most inventive person in figuring out how to help victims.”

Pompelio is not a big car-buff guy. A child during the 1950s, he always had fond memories of that decade, of rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and of the iconic, first-generation T-Birds made from 1955 to 57.

By 1988, he was married with a young family and had a thriving law practice in Morris and Sussex counties. He became nostalgic for a T-Bird and bought the car for $20,000. His was Fiesta red, with a 312 V-8 engine with 71,000 miles, a white ragtop and whitewall tires. Pompelio happily tooled around town, with the top down, on Sunday drives and in a few parades. But after Tony’s death, the car became a bittersweet reminder of his son’s murder.

“For 20 years, I would just look at the car,” he said. “I took it out a few times, but it became such an emotional experience for me every time I got in it. It paralyzed me.”

So, with the center’s funding down, he came up with the idea of the raffle.

“I said I’ve got to do something” to raise funds. I’ve got to be practical,” he said.

Raffle tickets cost $50 each and no more than 2,000 will be sold. The drawing will be Dec. 3. For tickets, call the center at (973) 729-9342. For more information on the center, see www.njcvlc.org.

Tony’s convicted killer, Michael Ardila, now 41, is serving a sentence of 30 years to life in South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, Cumberland County. He is not eligible for parole before 2022.